You know those little plastic air bags in your more fragile Amazon purchases that make perfect popping noise makers when you crush them? Amazon says it's reduced its usage of them and plans to completely eliminate using them by the end of the year.
Climate protestors in Germany broke through police barricades on Friday, amid clashes between activists and law enforcement. The protestors either made it onto (according to protestors) or near (according to local police) the grounds of a Tesla gigafactory in Grünheide, Germany, near Berlin. It’s part of a planned five-day demonstration ahead of a local government vote next week to determine whether Tesla’s plant can expand.
Swiss start-up Climeworks has done it again. The company just opened the world’s largest carbon capture plant in Iceland, dwarfing its own record of how much CO2 it can pull from the air.
Rivian owners can now use Tesla Supercharger stations to juice up their electric trucks and SUVs, after a software update issued during the weekend. The company first announced the integration last year, along with plans to include Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports in forthcoming vehicles.
We love tech of all shapes and sizes around here, but over the past decade it’s become increasingly obvious that our gadget fervor comes at a cost —especially when it comes to the environment. Metal and plastic don’t fully decompose over time, and almost everything we buy now has rare earth elements in it. But all is not lost as companies and consumers alike have become more cognizant of the problem, and offer possible solutions.
The consumer electronics industry has changed radically over the past two decades. AR/VR devices have come and gone and come again, smartphones have grown from filling our pockets to dominating our lives, and the tendrils of connected services now touch everything we touch.
Yet, for me, the most exciting to watch has been the development of technology that moves us. I mean that literally: cars and scooters and e-bikes and all the other wild and wonderful modes of transportation that have grown wings or wheels over the past few decades.